A team of Flinders researchers are the first and only group in the world able to isolate the abnormal clusters of proteins which cause the death of brain cells in Parkinson's and related degenerative diseases.

Dr Wei Ping Gai, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Human Physiology at Flinders Medical Centre, has been researching the causes of brain cell death in degenerative diseases for the past 20 years.

His research has had a particular focus on Lewy bodies - abnormal clusters of proteins which are found in the brain  cells of both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's sufferers and in some types of dementia.

Dr Gai and his team have developed a world-first technique that uses antibodies attached to magnetic beads to bind to a particular protein (Alpha-synuclein) that is the largest component of Lewy bodies.  They are then able to extract the Lewy bodies from Parkinson's affected brain tissue for detailed protein analysis.

This has allowed the Flinders team to be the first in the world to describe the internal structure of the Lewy body formations (which have a very precise structure), and to work in collaboration with teams from Elan Pharmaceuticals and Harvard Medical School to identify other proteins and components of the Lewy bodies.

The collaboration has recently uncovered that the addition or lack of  phosphates on this target protein could play a role in the formation of the Lewy bodies.  This interaction of this protein with the phosphates may also explain why the Lewy bodies react with the cell membrane to cause the cell's death.

The team hope that if they identify why proteins such as Alpha-synuclein form Lewy bodies, their research will pave the way for developing new diagnostic markers and drugs which can modify this process in both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.